Royal Mail is cutting 700 jobs as part of big shake-up
ROYAL Mail plans to axe 700 jobs to cut costs as part of a shake-up of the business.
The postal service announced the job cuts this morning, which will impact hundreds of staff in management roles.
Royal Mail said the restructure is eventually expected to save around £40million a year.
Simon Thompson, Royal Mail chief executive, said: “We have today entered into formal consultation on a management reorganisation to further streamline our operations and, at the same time, improve focus on local performance.”
He said the company had a “track record” of offering affected staff redeployment within the business or voluntary redundancy.
Royal Mail has opened a statutory consultation with Unite, the union, and its services branch CMA.
It will also work with the Communications Workers Union (CWU) during the process.
Royal Mail also published an update on absences due to Covid, which has caused delivery delays across the country.
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The number of staff off sick peaked at 15,000 over Christmas and early January, which is around 12% of the workforce.
“This has resulted in increased costs and impacted quality of service in some areas of the country,” Royal Mail said.
The absence rate has now fallen below 10%, it said.
Last week, there were 56 postcodes facing delivery delays according to Royal Mail’s service update.
Areas affected included London, Glasgow, Yorkshire and Manchester.
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